Lippy's ERA #797 build log

[Detroit Bill]

I read through this whole thread and it is like a book without an ending.

What is the status?

[lippy]

Funny to see this post resurrected. The car has about 2400 miles on it. Not bad for the first 9 months or so. I've taken the car on a couple of longer trips, but most of the mileage has been local tuning runs with a wideband O2 sensor attached.

Because it has a fairly radical cam, getting the car to run just right has proven to be a little tricky, but I think I'm finally there. First, I swapped out carbs and bought a Braswell. It is a top-notch piece, beautiful construction and tolerances. And it is not a modified Holley. It is manufactured 100% by Braswell. Not that the original QFT couldn't have been made to work well, but the Braswell comes with advice from Dave Braswell himself, and I can tell you first hand this guy is insanely knowledgable about carbs and engines (most of his carbs are on NHRA cars churning out 10k HP). One feature of this carb is that you set the floats precisely using a caliper instead of eyeballing the sight glass. For example, we settled on 0.825" for the primary, and 0.775" for the secondary (higher). You would think these small differences of less than a tenth wouldn't make a difference, but they really do. With these settings, my cruise is lean enough, and I don't starve the secondary under hard launch. After a couple of iterations of fiddling with idle air bleeds, jets, float levels, and squirters, I'm where I need to be on AFR during cruise, light acceleration, and WOT.

The second thing I did that really made a difference was to get a 10 degree advance bushing from FBO Ignition, Distributor tuning and Carburetion Professionals, FBO Ignition systems, Ford Ignition, Mopar Ignition, Ford Distributors, Mopar Distributors, Ford distributor curving, Mopar distributor curving, HEI Ignition, MSD ignition tuning,. The reason I needed it was that I was fouling plugs at idle. Dave Braswell and Don at 4secondsflat advised me that with my cam, I need a lot more idle advance (say 26 degrees) while keeping my full advance at 36. Since the cam has a lot of overlap, it has a hard time building cylinder pressure at low RPM and it doesn't atomize or burn fuel well at idle. The trade off many times is hard starting with that much initial advance, but it actually starts easier and runs much better. With the carb adjustments I made, that really did the trick and my plugs look great. In fact, I cut a few of them last week so I could see the color along the entire insulator.

Certainly I wish it would've been a bit easier to get this car running right, but the flip side is that I really learned a ton.

[Detroit Bill]

That is interesting. Do you feel you went over the top with the engine?
Would you do it differently if you had it to do again?

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Detroit Bill

That is interesting. Do you feel you went over the top with the engine?
Would you do it differently if you had it to do again?

When building an FE for one of our Cobras, you have to perform a balancing act. As power goes up, engine life expectancy goes down, finickiness goes up, and street manners go down. There is a sweet spot, however, for most of us; but it is not the same, for all of us. Finding it, for you, is the tricky part. (And I won't even mention the closely guarded secret that, on the street, any engine putting out over 400 horses in a 2500 lb. car is pretty much for bragging rights only anyway.)

[lippy]

Originally Posted by Detroit Bill

That is interesting. Do you feel you went over the top with the engine?
Would you do it differently if you had it to do again?

Hard to say. It's always easy to look back and second guess yourself. What is good about the engine is that it's pretty tame below 4k RPM, even docile. Above 4k RPM the power really comes on, which is nice. If push came to shove I'd probably go with a slightly tamer cam but keep the solid rollers. I'm sure I'd be happy with a hydraulic/torquer as well, but that's a different feel altogether. But as I said before, I was forced to up my game pretty significantly, and I'm happy I gained that knowledge.

[Detroit Bill]

Jeff do you have any finished engine photos?

[lippy]

Update:

New:
- BT intake
- Cam. Still solid roller, but much more streetable
- Cylinder heads/valve guides fixed
- Custom spun air cleaner top with larger 9" x 3" air cleaner, which I really needed
- Oil pan rail, which I hope will stop persistent leaking
- MSD 6530 programmable ignition box plus MAP sensor
- Open PCV set up
- Cut ignition wires to length so they are neater
- Retuned carb. Probably a bit more to do, but it is *far* easier to tune with this cam

So far, I have about 100 miles on it. A few teething problems (e.g., leaks from Gates Power Grip hose clamps - don't use them!) but everything *seems* to be good and the car is driving well. No leaks so far, except the rear main seal, which drips a little bit. The car drives great. I hope everything stays good. Here is what it looks like.

[Bernica]

Just beautiful Lippy! Great job!
Love that custom air cleaner lid...very nice touch!

[DanEC]

Congratulations and good news on the repairs/mods.

[lippy]

Originally Posted by Bernica

Just beautiful Lippy! Great job!
Love that custom air cleaner lid...very nice touch!

Thanks. Got it from Mike at Universal Spinners in Toronto. universalspinners Toronto
Nice guy to deal with, and neat work.

[Bernica]

Originally Posted by lippy

Thanks. Got it from Mike at Universal Spinners in Toronto. universalspinners Toronto
Nice guy to deal with, and neat work.

Love the spun stuff vs the stamped stuff! Shows you care IMHO!

[1795]

Loos great Lippy! Nice to see you back on the road again. Nice upgrade on the air cleaner. A big engine needs a lot more air flow than a lot of period correct air cleaners can provide.

[xb-60]

I'm glad you're happier with the engine behavior now lippy. It's good that you have stuck with a (milder) solid roller cam. When it has bedded in a little more, let us know what the 'new' top end is like.
Again, I love the colour (that dark blue)!

Cheers,
Glen

[Detroit Bill]

Who did the air filter for you?

[lippy]

Originally Posted by Detroit Bill

Who did the air filter for you?

Universal Spinners in Toronto. He does nice work.

[era cobra]

Congratulations, very nice looking Cobra. You can be proud of it.